


You Just Never Knew

by soakyourskin



Series: Tumblr Drabbles [6]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Mutual Pining, Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-22 19:00:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4846694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soakyourskin/pseuds/soakyourskin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wonders if it would have been easier, telling him the truth about what he felt, when Liam had cornered him that one night in the hotel, and asked, <em>what do you want from me? </em>instead of passing it off as—<em>just a little bit of fun, Leeyum. C'mon then, Lou and Harry’ve no problem doing it</em>—and having gotten what he wanted without really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Just Never Knew

He wonders if it would have been easier, telling him the truth about what he felt, when Liam had cornered him that one night in the hotel, and asked,  _what do you want from me?_ instead of passing it off as— _just a little bit of fun, Leeyum. C'mon then, Lou and Harry’ve no problem doing it_ —and having gotten what he wanted without really.

Because he got the rough nights under the heavy weight of him, fingers painting his skin with shades of red and black and purple, panting out his name in sweet crescendos, falling apart so violently that he’d forget about after. And after always came. After with— _I’ve got to go, Soph’s on the phone_ —and too sticky, too warm, too empty a bed, with just him in it.

He wonders if it would have changed anything, telling him,  _yes, this means something to me, yes I want to do it again,_  instead of, laughing through the thick in his throat, hands trembling with the want to tear at his crawling skin and escape.  _Nah, just a bit of a laugh between mates, right?_  when he asked, after the kiss,  _was that—did that—_

Because he watched his smile falter when he did, watched the strain in his jaw as he kept it plastered on his face, watched him pull away with a laugh of his own, too cold, too distant, too sharp filling the too quiet space between them, enough to make him regret what he said, but not enough to make him take it back.

He wonders if it would have hurt a little less, sticking around to watch him with her, grinning as her lips moved just a little too low down his neck, too close to where his own marks lay just under the collar of his shirt, if he just had him in the mornings to wake up to, hair a mess, smile soft and lazy with sleep, fingers gentle in his tingling skin, as they trace over the path they made the night before.

Because he’s woken up too often with the other half of the bed tidy, clean, folded, like he was never there, woken up too often, just in time to catch the heel of his foot as he leaves for her, the thud of the door closing, loud and mocking— _he’s gone, he’s gone,_  woken up too often with just the sting and bite and tenderness of the fading yellow catching on the curve oh his hips to prove he had him that night.

He wonders if it would have made a difference, telling him,  _I do want it—want you. I want you,_ that night they both got a little too drunk and Liam got a little too honest, a little too bare with,  _I don’t understand why you kissed me. I don't—I love her, you know. I do. Because she’s easier to love. It’s so much easier with her. It hurts too much being yours, like this._

Because he wanted to say it, he wanted to say that he was afraid of trying and having them be pulled apart like Harry and Louis, that he wouldn’t have been strong enough to love him only in the dark, to have him but not really, that it hurt to not be with him like he wants because— _I want, Liam. I fucking want_ , but he knows it’d destroy him to watch him pretend to be someone else’s.

He wonders and it’s killing him knowing that it’s too late, too late for anything, too late to change, to go back and tell him that it’s real for him, it’s all real for him, and he doesn’t care that it will tear at him to try anymore because at least he’d have him to hold after. It’s too late. It’s killing him and it’s too late. It’s too fucking late to wonder.


End file.
